


(but we are)

by paperclipbitch



Category: Daughters of the Dragon, Heroes For Hire (Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Best Friends, Canon Character of Color, Canon Compliant, Gen, Pre-Femslash, Yuletide, Yuletide 2014
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-19
Updated: 2014-12-19
Packaged: 2018-03-02 03:40:17
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2798201
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paperclipbitch/pseuds/paperclipbitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They both have their separated lives going on, and Misty’s had her own set of shit recently – not better shit or worse shit than she had while working with Colleen, but <i>different</i> shit – and yeah, Misty’s still adjusting to not having her girl at her back, at her side, not immediately there when she slides her eyes to the left.</p>
            </blockquote>





	(but we are)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [false_alexis](https://archiveofourown.org/users/false_alexis/gifts).



> This is largely gen, but if you want to read it as pre-femslash, it was pretty much written that way, so go for it! Also, Misty and Danny are in their off-again stage of that on-again-off-again thing, but I've clarified nothing, so if you want to read this as them maybe one day getting back together you can do that too.
> 
> Canon/comics-wise, my idea is that this is post _Shadowland_ for Colleen, and during/post _Fearless Defenders_ for Misty - aka they're both on their own teams and repairing their friendship stage.
> 
> I've ended up smushing together a few of your ideas, **false_alexis** \- hope this works for you!

**i.**

“We never talk anymore,” is Colleen’s complaint, a margarita and three pork buns away from some kind of ugly crying fit, the kind girls have in bathrooms over their boyfriends that nobody wants to talk about afterwards; wouldn’t be the first time.

Girls’ nights, right?

“I talk enough for both of us,” Misty points out, skipping over the slide of emotions, because if one of them is going to lose it over cocktails and leftover dim sum then she’d prefer it not to be her. They’ve always taken it in turns with this; one to feel, one to clean up. Everyone buys hangover cures and bitches the next morning so, hey, the house always wins.

“Well, that’s true,” Colleen allows, her chopsticks moving with efficient grace because, well, she just _has_ efficient grace in all things, alcohol or not: that’s samurais for you. “Misty-freakin’-I-Work-With-Actual-Goddesses-Now-Knight.”

Misty tips her head in acknowledgement, because hell _yeah_ she does, but all she says is: “Who says ‘freaking’ anymore anyway?”

Like she hasn’t spent her years dipping in and out of her own selection of street slang, with varying levels of irony and success, and Colleen’s smirk tells her all she needs to know.

“I just miss you,” Colleen allows in the end, easy and simple, like it probably should be. 

They both have their separated lives going on, and Misty’s had her own set of shit recently – not better shit or worse shit than she had while working with Colleen, but _different_ shit – and yeah, Misty’s still adjusting to not having her girl at her back, at her side, not immediately there when she slides her eyes to the left. There’s a difference between trusting people, and having people who are so much a part of you that it almost doesn’t matter anymore, which of you is the one in the firing line and which of you is the one standing behind, gun or sword in hand, gorgeous goddamn cavalry. They agreed it might be easier to work apart for a while, and maybe it is; maybe it isn’t.

“Yeah,” Misty sighs, and maybe they’ll both get to do drunk and maudlin tonight after all, “me too.”

**ii.**

Misty is a still cop a with two flesh and blood arms when she takes cover to call for back-up and finds the girl. Well, technically she’s probably about the same age as Misty, but with all that red hair and the white sweater she looks younger than she actually is; sneakers grinding into the dirt, holding a wicked-looking knife.

“Is this your fault?” Misty asks, instead of the half-dozen things she should probably be asking, but the knife is dry and the sweater is smeared with concrete dust and what looks like petrol but nothing else. Nothing more incriminating, anyway. 

“Who brings a gun to a knife fight anyway?” the girl responds, and then seems to register that Misty is a cop and you don’t make jokes about shit like that when the air is full of bullets and arrests for everyone who makes it out of tonight alive. Her mouth ticks, like she wants to swallow the words back, but she doesn’t fumble for new ones, for excuses, and it makes Misty smile almost in spite of herself.

“We need to get you out of here,” she says, and is pleased when the girl doesn’t argue, doesn’t try and pretend that she can tough this out herself, all highly visible sweater with an elbow torn out and a weapon that looks nasty but useless in these circumstances, unless the girl can actually cut bullets in half.

(Later on, Misty will learn that there’s nothing Colleen can’t do with a sword in her hand, fuck bullets, but this isn’t really a sword and maybe even Colleen doesn’t believe that right now, not yet. Later, though, they’ll both owe their lives to it.)

The girl’s gaze flicks toward where gunshots are still sounding, uncomfortably close, and Misty hopes that back-up she requested gets here soon, before she finds herself even more hopelessly outnumbered than she is already. Her and a civilian and half a dozen gangs drawn into each other’s orbits, the kinds that come with _collisions_. Fuckin’ perfect, really.

“Come on,” Misty says, and remembers to add a smile and: “I’m Mercedes.”

The girl shifts, sneakers scrunching against the tarmac, and in the moments before they both make a break for it she says: “hi, I’m Colleen.”

**iii.**

Danny draws a fingertip through spilled sugar on the tabletop, over and over in a way that some people would call ‘nervous’ and Misty just calls ‘irritating’, because she knows Danny better than that.

“You’re a better girlfriend to Colleen than you ever were to me,” Danny says, easy, and Misty could kick him under the table or blurt a few dozen words, but she plays poker with half the Avengers, and she knows all about keeping a neutral expression.

“Do you want to start this?” she asks instead, tone light. “Because I’m pretty sure that you got Luke flowers for your last anniversary.”

“I’ll make someone a wonderful wife some day,” Danny agrees, regardless of the fact they both know that isn’t true, and she could get wistful at this point but it’s happier for them both not to. Danny’s one of those constants in her life; to examine exactly what they’ve done to each other and when would be to create something different, worse, out of it all, and they never wanted to be one of those couples.

The way she feels about Danny is different to the way she feels about Luke is different to the way she feels about Colleen, which could be complicated except that Misty knows Peter Parker and her life is frankly pretty simple in comparison. Sure, she tried making new friends outside of her specific circle and one of them went kind of crazy and stabbed another one of the friends, which was new and pretty unpleasant, but somehow still less weird than twenty-four hours in the life of Steve Rogers.

This is the problem with being friends with all these superheroes, really: they put your life in perspective, even when you think you’d _like_ to be sulky and self-indulgent for once.

“Is this a you thing?” Misty asks instead, because she was a cop and then a private investigator and now she’s, well, she’s _something_ now anyway, and she can read people pretty damn well as a result, even before you add in the fact that this is _Danny_. “Or is this a Luke thing? Or a Luke-and-Jess thing?” 

“You’re a suspicious woman, Misty,” Danny says, which, yeah, duh. 

Misty props her chin on her hand and waits patiently, because she’s just gotten a fresh cup of this not-that-awful diner coffee and she can outwait Danny, she’s always been able to outwait Danny.

“We… might all have decided to say something,” Danny allows.

“Luke should’ve done this,” Misty interrupts. “He usually brings Danni, and she’s much cuter than you are.”

Danny smirks, like, _yeah, sure, keep telling yourself that one, darling_ , and someone who isn’t Danny should probably have discussed this with her, if they wanted it discussing. 

“We’re just worried about you,” Danny tells her, all humour dropped for a moment, and, well, _shit_.

Misty sips her coffee and sighs and thinks about _we should’ve just been heroes_ and the space it left behind that they claim they’ve filled but are actually still working on. “Yeah,” she murmurs, “me too.”

**iv.**

Misty – still two arms, still not a superhero, still working the beat for a while longer – is kicking the shit out of a punching bag when Colleen shows up, smirking, strap of her work-out vest sliding down one shoulder. Misty’s first thought is _damn_ , because it’s hard not to look at Colleen and think that, even after years of exposure, and especially this first time.

“Hi,” Colleen says, bright, all fluidly fierce like a dancer, waterproof eyeliner flicks and loose hips and the glow that comes from pushing yourself a little harder than necessary just for kicks.

Misty stops lifting weights – she’s much more about the bulk and the strength that muscle can give you; she doesn’t have the delicacy that Colleen has – and eyes her for a moment.

“Are you thanking me for saving your life by stalking me?” she asks, because Colleen looks much more sure of herself like this, not sipping shitty station coffee and picking the fraying sleeves of her sweater. Now she’s all sleek muscle and confidence and Misty reconsiders _who brings a gun to a knife fight_ in a different colour now.

“That would be weird,” Colleen responds cheerfully, and Misty notes her neatly side-stepping the question but doesn’t push it because Colleen’s grinning and it lights up her face and, well, yeah. Misty’s _that_ girl apparently.

“You going to buy me a coffee?” Misty asks instead, and there’s something sweet like pleased relief in Colleen’s shoulders.

“Sure,” she says, and nods toward the weights, Misty’s half-finished set. “Want me to spot you?”

Luke and Jess and Danny laugh at them now, and demand a better origin story, like their eyes met across and alley and suddenly they kicked in a would-be mugger’s head simultaneously, but Danny’s the one with the chi and Jess and Luke are the ones who wound up with superhuman powers and maybe, in the end, this was just as easy as it needed to be.

**v.**

The thing about the last few years is that Misty’s had to learn to adapt in more ways than she even knew she was capable of. She always thought she was pretty flexible, and then she learned that life will kick your ass and one day you’ll have everything sorted, and the next you’ll be missing an arm and fucking _Iron Man_ will be giving you a new one and your job won’t want you the way you want it and everything will be different. 

Even through all of that, though, and all the shit that came after, the friendships and the love and the teams and the world trying to end over and over (and _over_ ), and that thing that she and Danny don’t – can’t – talk about, well, Misty had her constant. That rock in the middle of her surging ocean, whatever shitty metaphor you want to use. Of all the things that were supposed to break and walk away and never call even when they said they would, Colleen was never meant to be one of them.

“I know,” Colleen says, slumped on Misty’s couch, and even in this space that she made her own, there are still pieces missing. Things said that can never be taken back, never be unsaid.

It sucks, basically, and no matter how many times Danny or Luke want to squish them together and have them hug it all out, it takes time to fix things like this. There’s no shortcut for when something like that gets kicked the way they kicked it. It’s worse, because neither of them were prepared for it either. Hell, Misty was always pretty sure they’d still be hanging out once they got old, grandma ninjas or something similar (“…Misty, neither of us are ninjas.” “Not _now_ we’re not, but we’ve got plenty of time to learn.”). 

Misty could blame Colleen, but she doesn’t and she won’t; something always had to shift, and they both left it a little too long so that instead of a clean break they got a million little awful splinters that are still working their way to the surface. There’s something left behind, though, something glittery bright that they couldn’t break between them, even if they’d wanted to try. The part where Misty will never let Colleen walk into a situation without her watching her back; the part where even when Colleen has nowhere left to turn, she’ll always have Misty. Things like that: they never go away. 

Colleen puffs out a breath, and yeah. They used to be better at this, but half their words feel wrong and Misty is pretending like Luke isn’t going to call for a mission report when all this is over; maybe he and Jess and Danny are all in the wrong careers after all.

“Karaoke?” Colleen suggests, and what Misty wants to say is: _is this going to be worse than all that rollerblading we used to do_ , but she’s already established that she’ll follow Colleen anywhere. 

“I’m driving,” she says, and Colleen raises her hand in a cheerful jangle of keys.

“Well,” she says, “it’s nice that you think that, anyway.”

Misty laughs. It’s enough.


End file.
